According to Football Daily, China will face rivals Malaysia and Syria, who have many naturalized players, on international days in September. Syria, in particular, relies on many players who play abroad.
The head coach of the Malaysian team is Kim Judge Gon from South Korea, who is no stranger to Chinese soccer. This time, he has called up 26 players, half of whom are naturalized players. These naturalized players include 7 Chinese players, plus players from Australia, England and Sweden, and 3 non-blooded naturalized players from South America. The team is significantly stronger compared to before.
Last year, Malaysia drew with Thailand and Tajik in the King's Cup in Thailand, losing on penalties to Tajik in the final, and earlier this year, Thailand won the first leg of the Southeast Asian Cup semifinals by one goal. Since March, Turkmenistan and Hong Kong, China have won four consecutive warm-up matches. On August 29, Malaysia has begun training, Kim Jee Koon said will not "set up a bus", hope to play offensive soccer to win. More powerful naturalization will play an important role at that time. Jin Jiekun emphasized that a win on the road would help the team make a breakthrough in the Asian Cup.
The Syrian coach is the famous Argentinean coach Cooper. He attached great importance to this warm-up match. Disappointingly, Syria lost 0-1 to Bahrain and Vietnam on match days in March and June. This time, Cooper dropped five international players from his June roster, including naturalized midfielder Aish, who joined Seoul at the beginning of the year and played for Sweden. Nagar, a naturalized Australian-born striker, has not found a new employer since his release from his contract with Australia's Super MacArthur. Habouni, a mixed-race center back born in Canada, attended the Canadian national team's training camp. Last September, he chose Syria as his representative. However, he is currently playing for Magdeburg II in Germany's lower league and has not been recognized by Cooper. Also on the roster are Kavo, Amin and strikers Babouri and Slovara, who have appeared for Canada's U23 national team.
Of Syria's 24-man roster, 10 played in the domestic league. However, as the new season in Syria has been postponed from August 25 to September 22, it is difficult to guarantee the form of domestic players, so they have to rely more on overseas players. Among the study abroad players, right back Weiss is the only European player playing in the Greek sub-league. Almost all of the other 13 overseas players play in West Asia, for teams in Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, UAE and Qatar. The strongest are veteran midfielder Mawas, who plays for the Iraqi Air Force, and veteran striker Soma, who recently moved to the Qatar Arabs. Effective goal scorer Hribin, who played for Dubai Young Nationals last season, is also a player to watch out for. Like Nagar, they are yet to find a new team and hence failed to make the cut.
